League of Their Own - Great Britain Rugby League
Exclusive and Groundbreaking Documentary of the Gillette Tri-Nations
This two hour documentary provides a unique and detailed insight into how a top line sports team comes together to face the toughest challenge in their sport. 2005 saw the best three teams in the world meet in the UK to play each other twice, with the leading two meeting in the final.
As a national side the challenge was to bring together club players who have just finished their superleague season to face an already battle hardened New Zealand team. They had already played two games and behind them the top team Australia were waiting ominously in the wings.
Pride in a Rugby League Jersey
The players come across as ordinary blokes, enjoying each others company, joking around with all the usual banter. It's lads heaven in many ways, the absence of women from this world is noticable. Even players wives barely get a look in. In the end it's about the pride and a sense of belonging with your teammates. The team jerseys are handed out in a solemn and serious way. Behind the humour is tension.
Kiwis, Hakas and defeat
Professional sports players don't do defeat well. All the atmosphere generated by mateship and banter disappears and the emptiness is palpable. Rugby league players represent their community in a way that is rare in sport in the modern world. It feels almost like shame. The quality of this documentary is the way it communicates this, flitting between whats happening on the pitch, with the faces of the substitutes and the tension of the coaches. It never feels like a highlights reel but the fierceness of the game and the physical toll of defeat comes across very well.
Enter the Australians
The strength of the tri-nations tournament is that the three best teams playing each other allows for no soft games, no breaks, just unrelentless challenges. Defeat by New Zealand is followed by playing the best team drawn from the strongest rugby league nation. The NRL is the greatest rugby league competition in the world fed from the biggest junior leagues in the world. This gives a nice underdog feel to the story.
"We are the Warrior Race - Tough Men in the Toughest Sport"
The documentary is well paced in how it reveals the toll on battle hardened, elite athletes in a sport designed for maximum impact. Bone crunching and brutal, the structure is set up for massive collisions at high speed. The injury to Paul Deacon for example, which broke his jaw in three places and left his face looking like a halloween mask, is barely dwelled on. For an insight into how these players manage the physical and mental challenges and how badly defeat is taken, despite the best efforts of the coaches and backroom staff, this is the perfect dvd.
- League of Their Own: Great Britain Rugby League
- Running Time: 160 mins
- Published by: Lace International Limited
- Producer/director: Rob Sloman
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